UI – Part 168 – Islam & Trinity (II)

Continued from the prior Blog we left the reader with the question: What is the “Word” of “God”?

The WORD

The New Testament gospel of John opens, “In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was God.  He was with God in the beginning.” (1:1-2). This answers the question posited in the prior Blog, “Was God alone at the moment of the Big Bang?” – or even prior.  “He” was with God at Creation.  Who is He?  He is the ‘Word’.

With this the Word equates to the Son of God.  Let me repeat The Word and Jesus, the Word and Christ are the same.  This is not the definitional ‘word’, such as an utterance, the smallest element that is semantic that can be said, it is a Being, supernatural, the Word as God proclaims.   Whether as an attribute or a personal Being, it is part of the soul of the Monarchy in the eternal kingdom.

“Let there be light”, this Word proceeds from the Creator.  Is it God?  Is it the Father?  Is it the Father and the Son as one voice?

Genealogy

In the Book of Matthew the reader is given the genealogy of Joseph, step-dad of Jesus.  In the Old Testament we have the history of Jesus’ lineage.   Let us begin with Abraham.  We will skip several persons but we have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, … Jesse, King David, Solomon …, Hezekiah,… , Jacob, Joseph (husband of Mary to whom was born Jesus), Jesus Christ.  (Matthew 1).  Until Jesus the names are persons from OT biblical history.

From Luke 3 we can read the genealogy of Mary, again we will begin with Abraham, then Isaac, Jacob, … Jesse, King David, … Amos, …, Mary, Jesus Christ.[i]

This is the lineage of the Son of God; it is also the lineage of the Son of Man.  Jesus is replete with a human and divine nature.  This we will continue to discuss.

Allah Can Be and Do All

The Quran correctly notes that Allah can Be and Do as he wishes.  In the Bible we find the same for God, God the Father.  And so Allah was able to have a virgin, Mary, give birth to a son, Jesus, even calling him the ‘good news’.  Thus there is some clarity in the Islamic Scripture.  That clarity, however, is followed by denial, that even if Allah can conceive of a boy sans an earthly father, Allah is not the Father, thus denying God the Father.  This avoids the fact, even evidence of a divine conception.

Father, Son and Mary

For me this is where the rational Islamist mind of a man breaks down.  Muhammad was aware of the virgin birth.  He knew the child – Jesus.  He is referred to as Messiah.  He was unclear as to the components of the Tertullian Trinity.  He understood the Trinity as the Father, Son and Mary.  Such evades, or somehow Muhammad missed Waraqah[ii]’s lesson, the repeated Biblical commentary that discusses the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as having a unique bond, a supernatural bond.   Muhammad apparently did not comprehend the logos or the logic and role of the Holy Spirit. What he knows, or possibly does not know, out of confusion from a variety of sources at the time, is wrongly recorded.  He somehow began to see himself as the Counselor that would follow Jesus after the Ascension.  He imagined himself as the next prophet, not as the Spirit the Bible affirms as God indwelling in those who believe.   Such thinking, such hubris, disallows the application of Reason or Wisdom.  The resultant dogma, or doctrine, of Islam never altered what the scholars, the ulema, have repeated erroneously.

Agreement

As for God, we can all agree that all things made through Him, He Himself made.  How could it be that He Himself, his offspring, is nothing, or that which is conceived by His Will, is not His Son (as it was a male), except as a result of denial by a human – Muhammad or his successors.  Without God nothing is possible.  Allah can conceive a child, yet denies it is his child.  Whose child could it be?  Isa was never a nobody.  Was denial a practice in Islam from the start?   Today there would be a call for a DNA test.  In the early 600’s it was only Muhammad and his thoughts.  There may have been punishment also for those who disagreed with Muhammad or thought otherwise.[iii]

Consider this.  God can be Spirit.  Agree.  God is a Spirit.  Agree.  God can make human, and also be human.  God can be a body.  Agree.  Then God can be made earthly and be called Son of God.  If God is all-powerful, all-capable, we can only Agree.

Visible – Invisible

The Word of God as God has Substance.  It can be visible or invisible.  In human form Jesus was the Word of God, Son of Man, Son of God.  Human fathers have human sons that are separable.  How can the Son of God as the Word of God be separated from God?

The Son of God emanates from the Father, yet is not separate.  Unique only to God! To God as Father!

Jesus has an expressed relationship with his Father as no other Father-Son relationship.  “He knows the Father.”  He does not have a need to know him, he knows him; there is no separation that precludes complete knowledge.  Jesus has “heard and seen all things with the Father; and what He has been commanded by the Father, this also does He speak”, so states Tertullian.  His Will is his Father’s Will.

“And the Word was with God.”

Grace and Peace

Next week we continue………..